1837.] from the Buddhist Tope at Sanchi near Bhilsa. 475 



the inscriptions.) Again ; <£ dh, is only the letter ^ produced from 

 below — if doubled it would have been confounded with another letter, 

 (the & .) The aspirated p fc;, is merely the \jp, with a slight mark, 

 sometimes put on the outside either right or left, but I cannot yet 

 affirm that this mark may not merely denote a duplication of the letter 

 rather than an aspiration — if indeed the terms were not originally 

 equivalent ; for we have just seen the doubling of the letter made to 

 denote its aspiration. 



The kh seems formed from the g rather than the k : — the gh o.ndjh 

 are missing as in Tibetan, and appear to be supplied by g and chh 

 respectively, bh is anomalous, or it has been formed from the 4 by 

 adding a downward stroke. 



Again ; there is a remarkable analogy of form in the semivowels 

 r, r, /, y, | , J , ^j , Jj, which tends to prove their having been framed 

 on a consistent principle : — the first r hardly ever occurs in the Delhi 

 inscription, but it is common in that from Girnar. The h \j., is but 

 the -J reversed : the ti so peculiar to the Sanskrit alphabet is formed 

 by adding the vowel i to the r thus, p. 



As far as is yet known, there are only one n* and one s : the nasals 

 and sibilants had not therefore been yet separated into classes ; for 

 the written Pali of 200 years later possesses at least the various n's, 

 though it has but one s. 



The four vowels, initials, have been discovered \\ , *• , ^, |_; a, i, e, u. 

 The second seems to be the skeleton of the third, as if denoting the 

 smallest possible vocal sound. Of the medial vowels it is needless to 

 speak, as their agreement in system with the old Nagari was long 

 since pointed out. The two long vowels i and d, are produced by 

 doubling the short symbols. The visarga is of doubtful occurrence, but 

 the anuswara is constantly employed ; and when before m, as in Q'^, 

 dhamma, it is equivalent to the duplication employed in the more 

 modern Pali writing. The following, then, is our alphabet, arranged 

 in the ordinary manner. 



Gutturals. + 1 A - ? • 



Palatials. d cb £ - ? • 



Cerebrals. ( O r 1 (o • 



Dentals. A I 3 D 1 



Labials. U (j Q r/ 8 



Semivowels,$c. J^ | -J i rb lr ^ 



Vowels. H .'• > L P 



* I think the Girnar and Ceylon inscriptions will be found to have the other 

 nasals made by modification of the primary _]_• There are other letters in these 

 texts not found in the hits of this side of India. 



Jc kh 



gghng 



^r^*i*r^ 



ch chh j jh ny 



^^51 »*?S| 



t th 



d dh n 



■z <r ^^ ** 



t th 



d dh n 



71 *T ^"6T*T 



p ph 



b bh m 



■qtfi W*T W 



y r 



I v s h 



■q <^?*^ 



a i 



e u ri 



•SUXVZ ^ 



